Manipulating a windows program

[chiefy81]

Is there a way to automate reading from a windows program and inputing (mouse clicks and text input) into a programs controls? I would like to be able to click buttons on the program running locally and input text into text boxes programatically.

Im guessing there are some tools out there already but I am not sure what to search for (if it is even possible). If there is not a program like this already is it possible using C++ or .NET? Thanks in advance

[Joeman]

If you want to capture another programs window messages, you have to inject a dll into and hook into the message queue using SetWindowsHookEx and WM_GETMESSAGE. I haven't done this before, but I am pretty sure this is how it is done.

Now if you just want to get data from a textbox from another process, you just use sendmessage.. with perhaps WM_GETTEXT, but I haven't done that for sometime now